Business School dean chairs National Competitiveness Board

STANFORD - Understanding the ways science and technology affect the
nation's economy is important for U.S. policymakers as they attempt to
increase the nation's competitiveness. To help provide them with more
information, the National Research Council has created the Board on Science,
Technology and Economic Policy (STEP), chaired by Stanford Business School
Dean A. Michael Spence.

The 15 board members - including an array of economists, business leaders,
and government policymakers - are scheduled to issue the group's first report
in July.

Board members have studied and discussed macroeconomic and microeconomic
variables, their relationship to the industrial economy, their effect on
high-technology manufacturing and service industries, and the influence of
these forces on scientific and technological advancement.

At a conference in September, members discussed factors that influence
corporate investment, such as investments involving the development and
deployment of new technology.

The first report will examine how government policies affect private
investment, savings and the cost of capital. Later reports will discuss
improving human capital through the education and training of the American
work force, and standards-setting, including the process by which laws,
regulations, rules and practices shape product standards that influence
international trade and the accessibility of industries to markets.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of
Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology
with the academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal
government. The council is the principal operating agency of the National
Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing
services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering
communities.

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